This
matters for markets. The success of the West lies not just
in its liberalism, now unravelling, or its rule of law, which
business evidently could care less about, or its military, which is
going to be eclipsed on the current trend, but on its science and
technology that powers that military. That’s why allowing top
universities to turn into what @EricRWeinstein calls
“Revolutionary Marxist justice fingerpainting day-care for
sociopaths” is not a good idea. How many econometric papers
talk about human capital, R&D, technological progress, etc.,
without looking at what the universities are actually doing?
Economically, this can point to lower productivity and so
stagflation. Geopolitically, Russia and China are throwing money at
science in a Cold War manner, but it doesn’t even enter markets’
minds that this a talent contest the West could lose.
This matters for
markets.
Western
institution after institution is being proved unfit for purpose.
Congress,
already held in contempt, is now finally seeing that academia is just
as morally and intellectually corrupted, if not worse.
A successful society might be able to get by for a while with one of
those two not functioning, but surely not both. So, alongside the
minutiae of data points and reading geopolitical runes, we
also need to see if these university presidents step down, are fired,
or U-turn towards substantive policy changes that can turn the ship
around – and
then look ahead to 2024 elections. So far, we have a series of
official mea culpa tweets and promises of action. Then
again, we heard a lot of “build back better” and “transitory”
in recent years.
By Michael Every of Rabobank
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